Furnace fob bttbinitg bagasse



UNITE@ STATES PATENT FBFIE.

E. SKELLY, OF PLAQUEMINE, LOUISIANA.

FURNACE FOB. BURNING BAGASSE, &CL

Specification of Letters Patent No. 20,591, dated'June 15, 1858.

To'aZZ whom, 'it may concern:

Be it known that I, EvAN SKELLY, of Plaquemine, in the parish of Iberville and State of Louisiana, have invented anew and useful Improvement in Furnaces for the Use of Bagasse, Tanbark, Sawdust, and other Small or Refuse Matters Suitable for Fuel; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and eXact description of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification, in which- Figure l, is a longitudinal Vertical section of a boiler furnace with my improvements. Fig. 2, is a horizontal section of the same, in the plane indicated by the line x, m, of Fig. 1. Fig. 8 is a horizontal section of the same, in the plane indicated by the line y, y, of Fig. l. Fig. 4 is a transverse vertical section of the same.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in the several gures.

This invention consists in a certain construction of the furnace and arrangement of air-passages for heating and supplying air to the fire, whereby a very perfect combustion of the small or refuse fuel is obtained with the use of a very small quantity of wood.

To enable others to make and use my invention, I will now proceed to describe its construction and operation.

A, is the fire-chamber of the furnace, the general form of whose horizontal section is that of a circle` but there are a number of angular projections a, a, on its interior eX- tending from the bottom up to or nearly up to the commencement of the roof of the lire chamber which is of the form of a dome. This chamber is built of masonry and lined with rebrick. In the center of the bottom of the said chamber there is a cone of irebrick, and over this cone in the center of the dome-shaped roof, there is a hopper B, through which the fuel is supplied, the supply being regulated by means of a revolving feed wheel C, which is constructed something licke a fan-blower and tted into the said hopper. The fuel falling on the cone is distributed evenly over its surface and gver the bed or bottom c, of the fire cham- The walls of the fire chamber are constructed with wide upright passages d, d, (see Figs. l, 2, and 3) extending from the bottom up to near the commencement of the dome, for the purpose of heating air and supplying it to the lire-chamber, amongthe fuel, and each of these passages has entries c, c', at the top from the eXterior of the furnace, andr branch passages el', d', entering the fire-chamber near the bottom thereof and each has a branch passage e, leading under the bed c, into a cavity f, in the center of the cone b, from which cavity there are passages g, g, leading into the lower part of the fire chamber. The entries 0, c', to the passages el, d, are all furnished with doors 7L, 7L, which may be opened more or less to regulate the supply of air to the fire. The branch passages e, are fitted with dampers p, p, by which to shut o2 or regulate the supply through the passages g, g.

z', z', are openings in the upper part of the furnace, fitted with doors z", z", for viewing the operation.

y', j, are openings close to the bottom, fitted with doors y, y, to permit the cleaning out of the ire chamber and lighting of the lire.

It', is an opening at one side of and near the bottom of the fire-chamber for the escape of the flame and gaseous products of combustion to pass under the boiler D, where are arranged the flrebridge Z, and a number of flame bridges m, m, arranged with openings on opposite sides alternately, as shown in Fig. 3, to cause the flame and products of combustion to take a serpentine direction to the chimney E, so that they may impart as much as possible of their heat to the boiler. The bridges m, m, are erected upon an arch g, under which there is a passage r, commencing behind the irebridge l, and leading to the chimney; and at the end of said passage, next the chimney, there is a damper n, which may be made to open either the said passage or the passage directly under the boiler to the chimney.

The operation of the furnace is as follows: The furnace having been charged with a suliicient quantity of fuel through the hopper B, and the fire kindled through the openings j, y', the doors j', j', are closed and those 7L', 7L', are opened to admit air to and among the fuel in sufiicient quantity. The air in passing down the passages d, d, becomes highly heated, and in that state it is distributed among the fuel through the passages d, d, and e, e, in such a manner as to produce such very intense and very perfect combustion that no smoke ever escapes. By the arrangement of the passages 0l, d, to

heat the air on its Way to the re, not only is a great loss of heat prevented, but the risk of lire by the overheating of the exterior of the fire-chamber is prevented, and the Walls are prevented cracking by being overheated. The angular projections a, a, in the interior of the fire chamber, serve the purpose of preventing the air circulating around and around the interior, and of delecting it that it may shoot across the fire-chamber in all direcetions for the purpose of causing it to penetrate among all portions of the fuel, and also causing a thorough mixture of air With the gaseous products of combustion, so that neither escapes under the boiler 15 central cone ZJ, and air passages c, al', d, e, 29

f, g, combined and arranged substantially as described to operate as set forth Plaqueinine, Iberville 20th April 1858.

EVAN SKELLY.

Witnesses:

O. LOBAURC, E. B. TRINIDAD. 

